Post-Industrial Land Transformation – An Approach to Sociocultural Aspects as Catalysts for Urban Redevelopment

The inheritance of idled, derelict and frequently abandoned post-industrial structures and sites we found nowadays in our landscapes is, arguably the result of human current and former land uses. One way or another, the present situation, enabled by technological innovation and structural economic change, is somehow based in human (ab)use of limited resources. As mentioned by Krinke, (2001, p.126) “as the world moved from agriculture to industry, a mechanist view of the universe began to supplant the idea of an organic nature. A desire for “progress” and faith in technology implied that the earth was a place to extract resources and its “complementary” idea: that the earth could absorb anything humankind asked of it”. However, the environmental and social consequences of such point of view enabled not only changes in society’s values but also a different view, according to which the former production and consumption patterns were no longer acceptable.